Mentalization: What It Is And How To Develop It
Have you ever wondered how human beings can “read” the minds of others? This ability is known as mentalization. It involves the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence.
Do you want to know what are the peculiar characteristics of mentalization and what can it serve? In this article we will answer these and other questions.
Before you begin, it is important that you know that babies are not born with the ability to practice this mental skill. Mentalization develops gradually thanks to the experience and relationships that children establish with people.
What is mentalization?
Mentalization, also known as a reflexive function, is a mental capacity that allows you to imagine and understand your own mental states and those of other people in order to perceive and interpret your own behaviors, actions and those of others. It consists in understanding certain thoughts, feelings, desires, beliefs, needs and motivations that allow us to explain our own behaviors and those of others.
This complex cognitive ability is essential for establishing satisfying social and emotional relationships based on mutual help, communication, empathy, assertiveness and active listening.
What is this mental capacity for?
According to psychologists and psychoanalysts Angelina Grael Amat and Gustavo Lanza Castelli, some of the most relevant functions concerning mentalization are:
- It makes it easier to understand and predict your own behavior and that of others.
- It favors behavioral self-control because it allows us to understand the impact of certain behaviors on others.
- It promotes emotional self-control which helps us to identify and express our desires, thoughts and feelings depending on the situations.
- Promotes secure attachment between children and parents.
- It improves communication between people because, in order to have a fluid conversation, it is necessary to take into account the mental state of the interlocutor.
- It allows us to understand our thoughts as a mere mental representation and as something different or separate from reality.
The development of mentalization in childhood
According to the psychoanalyst Peter Fonagy, one of the creators of the term mentalization, this cognitive ability begins to appear in a very primitive way after the first six months of life and, little by little, it improves and becomes more and more complex.
At age three, children begin to show some empathic reactions. During this age they acquire the ability to identify some basic emotions in others and to understand that these are different from the ones they feel.
However, you have to wait 4-5 years for children to understand and represent their own and others’ mental states. At that moment, children enter the stage of symbolic thinking.
What role do parents play in developing this ability?
It should be noted that in order for the development of mentalization to take its natural course, it is necessary for mothers, fathers or the main reference figures of children to enhance the emotional intelligence of children from the first years of life. How to do? From the moment the baby is born, they must act with empathy and show him that they are capable of understanding and reacting to his needs and desires.
As children grow up, you need to start talking about their thoughts and feelings, name them and define each one. In this way, children learn to reflect on their feelings and subsequently, naturally, they will acquire the ability to recognize and interpret the mental states of others.
Therefore, the education imparted at home and the way of relating with children are fundamental for the correct development of mentalization.
